


Author of My Hope

by ByTheAngell (SomeLittleInfamy)



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 08:08:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20811842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeLittleInfamy/pseuds/ByTheAngell
Summary: When a woman needs help, Ragnor suddenly regrets the secluded cottage he's sequestered himself away to until he finishes his manuscript.





	Author of My Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [sh_ficletinstruments](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/sh_ficletinstruments) collection. 

> Prompt: Cottage (image)

The storm rages, winds strong and thunder close enough to rattle the shaky foundation of the cottage. If it collapsed around Ragnor no one would know for weeks - Magnus is the only person who remains stubborn enough to visit, coming exactly once a month to check on him. Ragnor has no car. No phone. No internet. Entirely disconnected, just the way he wants, wallowing in the frustration of his unfinished manuscript. 

Debris begins to wash ashore before the storm fully passes. Parts of a ship, he notes. Tragic, but not uncommon. More comes throughout the day and he allows his curiosity to get the better of him one last time before sunset. 

That’s when he sees it. 

That’s when he sees  _ her _ . 

It’s not an easy walk down the rocky hillside to the shoreline, but he makes it in record time as the woman’s motionless body washes ashore. She’s half-draped over a splintered piece of wood, head dipping dangerously in and out of the rough water. 

Her lips are blue. 

He checks for a pulse - weak, but there. She’s bruised, bleeding, and roughly 100 miles from proper help. 

Ragnor supposes he’ll have to do. 

He carries her carefully up to his cottage, moving past the sofa and taking her straight to the bed. She’s still breathing, which is good - she’s also freezing to the touch. 

He strips her out of her soaking clothes and slips one of his shirts and the single pair of sweatpants he owns onto her in return, doing his best not to look as much as possible. He hopes she’ll forgive the invasion of privacy for (hopefully) not contracting hypothermia, and proceeds to tend to any obvious injuries from the wreck. 

She doesn’t wake up the first two days. A wound on her stomach shows sign of infection despite his best efforts and she has a rattling cough. She needs help and he can’t get it for her. Magnus won’t come for another 12 days.

With little else to offer by way of comfort his eyes fall on his desk. He’s heard that sometimes people can hear and process the world around them even while unconscious or in comas and that stimulus helps. He grabs his notebook and opens to the first page, eyes glancing over words he hasn’t looked back on since he first wrote them… then begins to read aloud. 

Ragnor reads through days three and four. The woman tosses and turns but when he brings liquids carefully to her lips he can coax her into swallowing instinctively, enough to feed her soup broths with as many vitamin-rich ingredients as he has. Between it all he continues to read, the cadence of his voice seeming to still the worst of her restless fits. 

On day six she opens her eyes, and he learns her name: Catarina. 

She heard him reading and wants to know how the story ends. 

On day seven he puts his pen to paper again for the first time in weeks. 

**Author's Note:**

> (Find me on [Tumblr](http://bytheangell.tumblr.com) and also on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/By_The_Angell)! <3 )


End file.
